Field of the Invention
The invention generally relates to mobile phone technologies, and more particularly, to apparatuses and methods for selection among multiple subscriber numbers.
Description of the Related Art
With growing demand for ubiquitous computing and networking, various wireless technologies have been developed, such as the Global System for Mobile communications (GSM) technology, General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) technology, Enhanced Data rates for Global Evolution (EDGE) technology, Wideband Code Division Multiple Access (W-CDMA) technology, Interim Standard 95 (IS-95) technology, Code Division Multiple Access 2000 (CDMA 2000) technology, CDMA 2000 1× Evolution-Data Optimized or Evolution-Data (CDMA2000 1× EV-DO) technology, Time Division-Synchronous Code Division Multiple Access (TD-SCDMA) technology, Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) technology, Long Term Evolution (LTE) technology, Time-Division LTE (TD-LTE) technology, LTE-Advanced (LTE-A) technology, and others.
Generally, a cellular phone only supports one wireless technology with one subscriber number for providing users with the flexibility of mobile communications at all times via the supported wireless technology using the single subscriber number. However, to an increasing extent, more and more people find having an additional subscriber number to be a good way to reduce their mobile service charges (including voice and/or data services), or to separate personal and business phone calls. In order to alleviate the burden of carrying two cellular phones for two separate subscriber numbers, so-called dual-number cellular phones have been developed, which generally support two wireless technologies for respective mobile services using an individual subscriber number. The dual-number design allows both wireless technologies to be active simultaneously and allows calls to be made or received on either subscriber number at any time.
Since mobile services obtained using different subscriber numbers are billed separately, an issue of budget management arises concerning how to select from the multiple subscriber numbers for conducting a certain mobile service. For example, each subscriber number is associated with an individual service contract which typically includes a monthly charge, rates of service charges for different mobile services (e.g., calls made within the same network, calls made across different networks, Short Message Service (SMS), and data service, etc.), time periods in which different rates are charged (e.g., the rate during the midnight hours is lower than the rate during the day time), and a usage quota that is included in the contract for the monthly charge (e.g., anytime minutes or credits, such as call credits, SMS credits, Packet-Switched (PS) service credits), etc. Specifically, said calls may include general voice calls and Video-Telephony (VT) calls which provide verbal and visual communications between or among end users. Nonetheless, most practices of budget management for dual-number cellular phones only take into account the rates of service charges and time periods of the plurality of subscriber numbers. That is, the mobile services are obtained using the subscriber number with the lowest rate of service charge in the designated time period, despite the chance that there may be another subscriber number with remaining usage quota.
Therefore, it is desirable to have a more cost-effective way of budget management that can take into account the remaining usage quotas of multiple subscriber numbers when selecting one of the subscriber numbers for obtaining mobile services.